1250 results found for Ideas For Design, displaying items 1 - 20
October 9, 2008 Simple Threshold Switch For An LED Indicator
I needed a simple LED indicator showing that a particular voltage level had been reached—specifically, that a capacitor had charged to a particular potential. I was convinced that there must be a way that a programmable zener diode, such as the TL431, could be used but I found no simple circuits. My first thought was just to connect a series current limiting resistor and LED to the cathode so that the LED would light when the reference potential was reached...
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Robert H. Russell
October 9, 2008 Six MOSFETs, Four Pins Create Two-Input Combo NAND/NOR Gate
This CMOS two-input combination NAND/NOR gate is a three-input, fourpin logic gate. A p-channel enhancementtype MOSFET (Q1) and an n-channel enhancement-type MOSFET (Q4) form one complementary connection. Q2 and Q6 form a second complementary connection, while Q3 and Q5 form the third (see the figure). A low input at A will close Q1 and open Q4. A high input at A will open...
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Lakshmi Narasimharao Chitturi
October 2, 2008 A Look Back At 40 Years Of Ideas For Design
After Electronic Design asked me to contribute something to this special issue, all kinds of possibilities ran through my mind. After all, it had been 40 years since my first ED article, which was itself an Idea for Design (IFD), “Gated Amplifier Uses FET in Feedback Loop,” in the Jan. 4, 1968 issue. So, what’s an IFD? The snappy answer is that it’s one of Electronic Design’s most popular editorial features. But more germane...
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Walt Jung
October 2, 2008 The IFD Culture—An Interview With Hall Of Famer Bob Dobkin
Linear Technology’s Chief Technology Officer Robert Dobkin has been contributing Ideas for Design (IFDs) since his youth. He’s still enthusiastic about them. “I remember one I wrote when I was a kid. It was a current source that you could pulse on or off. I don’t know how many letters I got from that,” he said. “It had just two or three transistors in it, but it was really effective in terms of people coming back to me after reading it, which...
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Don Tuite
October 2, 2008 Use IFDs To Develop And Showcase Your Design Concepts
Electronic Design published my first Idea for Design, “AC-DC Converter Runs Off One Power Supply” (April 16, 1992, p. 93), more than 16 years ago (Fig. 1). It set a theme that I have continued to employ ever since—using the nifty venue of IFDs to present and develop new circuit design ideas and themes to the engineering community. Over the years, examples of some of those basic concepts and ...
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W. Stephen Woodward
October 2, 2008 Then, Now, And Beyond—System Design In The 21st Century
I remember the day it arrived. All of our design engineers gathered around the lab bench waiting for our technician to unpack the box. As it was slowly lifted from the protective cardboard packing and set on the bench, we all looked on in amazement— 5 Mbytes in a single hard drive that could fit in your hand! It was a Control Data Corporation ST-506-compatible hard-disk drive that weighed 4.5 lb and consumed around 40 W. Just about everyone made some...
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Richard F. Zarr
October 2, 2008 A Look Back At 40 Years Of Ideas For Design
After Electronic Design asked me to contribute something to this special issue, all kinds of possibilities ran through my mind. After all, it had been 40 years since my first ED article, which was itself an Idea for Design (IFD), “Gated Amplifier Uses FET in Feedback Loop,” in the Jan. 4, 1968 issue. So, what’s an IFD? The snappy answer is that it’s one of Electronic Design’s most popular editorial features. But more germane is...
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Walt Jung
October 2, 2008 Single Op-Amp Peak Detector Features Signal Accumulation: Backstory
FIGURE 1 DEMONSTRATES A one-way switchedcapacitor gain stage circuit, performing a voltage gain of AO = C1/C2 only during the decreasing trail of the input signal VI (with VJ = 0). During the positive signal variations, the output doesn’t change, thereby implementing an incremental peak-detector and accumulator circuit. This device can be used to measure the...
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Massimo Gottardi
October 2, 2008 Bidirectional H-Bridge DC-Motor Motion Controller: Backstory
IN APPLICATIONS REQUIRING ABSOLUTE accuracy in the speed control of dc servo motors, there’s no substitute for the traditional tachometerbased feedback loop. But for somewhat less demanding situations, adequate accuracy often can be achieved without the complication and expense of a tach. This can be done by taking advantage of the built-in electromechanical constants of the motor itself. For example,...
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John Peterson
, et al.
October 2, 2008 Use Excel To Develop A Traceability Matrix: Backstory
A subrequirement that derives from multiple primary requirements can be achieved using the concatenation of the cells in the reference coupled with a line-feed character. For example, if CEI requirements 1.3.3 and 1.3.4 drive requirement 2.1.9 of the lower document, cell D11 would contain the Excel formula =A4 & CHAR(10 )& A5. To achieve the multiple line effect, the cell should be formatted to allow Wrap Text (in the Alignment...
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Aubrey Kagan
October 2, 2008 Reference Designs Play A Dual Role
At one time, reference designs were simply helpful guides to the finer details of designing a part into a board. Those days are long gone. The complexity of today’s devices, in addition to the fast pace of many markets, has forced some reference designs to evolve beyond educational tools into manufacturing documentation for fully defined end products (Fig. 1). This dual role leaves...
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Richard Quinnell
October 2, 2008 For Checking Software Without Hardware, FPGAs Are The Answer
An age-old truism in the system design realm is that the software is always ready to be checked out before first ASIC silicon is in hand. This leaves the members of the design team with an equally ageold conundrum: How are they to verify their first crack at an application stack and associated drivers without hardware to run them on? Waiting until that first silicon comes from the fab is an uncomfortable and often untenable option. The answer,...
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David Maliniak
October 2, 2008 Triple-Output LED Driver Works With Common-Anode LED Strings
SOME MULTI-STRING LED MODULES come with a common-anode configuration. The commonanode connection reduces the number of wires between the LED module and its driver from 2N to N+1, where N is the number of LED strings in the module. In this idea, we’ll drive a commonanode LED module while simultaneously limiting the LED string voltage when an LED string becomes open. Figure 1 shows the LT3496...
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Hua (Walker) Bai
October 2, 2008 "Ultimate" Continuity Tester Hides Many Tricks Up Its Sleeve
I WAS REMINDED RECENTLY of a tester I designed years ago. At the time, I wanted to build “The Ultimate Continuity Tester,” and I established a wish list of all the features I required: • A “real continuity” tester. Too many multimeters and sounders react at resistances as high as hundreds or even thousands of ohms, which makes them practically useless in many cases. Within a board or a system, there are always medium-conductivity...
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Louis Vlemincq
October 2, 2008 Inexpensive High-Speed Amplifiers Can Create Flexible Clock Buffers
IN CONSUMER ELECTRONICS APPLICATIONS, which tend to be lower in frequency and less demanding than typical clock-buffering applications, inexpensive high-speed op amps (~100-MHz bandwidth) can offer an attractive option in place of traditional clock buffers. High-speed amplifiers can be less expensive than traditional clock buffers, yet they’re able to accommodate a wide range of design configurations. For instance, one good alternative for...
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John Ardizzoni
October 2, 2008 Add Coordinated Overcurrent, Overvoltage Protection To PoE Equipment
POWER OVER ETHERNET (POE) enabled devices and their electronic components are designed for operation within specified current and voltage ratings. If these ratings are exceeded due to short-circuit or voltage transients, components may sustain permanent damage and the equipment may fail. Overcurrent and overvoltage protection devices are used to help protect both power-sourcing equipment (PSE) and powereddevice (PD) equipment. A growing...
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Matt Williams
October 2, 2008 Perform Coarse And Fine Correction With Less Costly Dual DCPS
DIGITALLY CONTROLLED POTENTIOMETERS (DCPS) find uses in a wide variety of systems for setting bias currents, variable reference voltages, and calibration settings. In industrial control and automation applications, high accuracy is a must. DCPs with 1024 taps are available, but for a few dollars instead of tens of cents. A dual, 32-tap, 50-k DCP is available for 40 cents. Can we use both of the DCPs in the package and reach similar performance to the 1024...
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Reza Bahadur
, et al.
October 2, 2008 "Take-Back-Half" Convergence Algorithm Stabilizes Microhydro Turbine Controller
THE SOARING COSTS OF fossil fuels, combined with environmental concerns like climate change, are driving the increased interest in renewable (“green”) energy. No energy source is “greener” than hydroelectric power, particularly small (“microhydro”) installations that involve minimal artificial water impoundment and associated environmental impact. Even with an adequate water source, however, efficient and cost-effective implementation of appropriate...
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W. Stephen Woodward
October 2, 2008 Who Actually Designs Reference Designs?
It’s fair to say there are really two kinds of reference designs. One is developed by chip companies that want a permanent foothold in an original device manufacturer’s high-volume platform in a consumer market. The other is produced by a chip company’s Web-based or downloadable PC tool that lets ordinary bench engineers mix and match ICs, simulate circuits, and obtain bills-of-materials (BOMs) and sometimes actual circuit board reference designs. ...
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Don Tuite
October 2, 2008 Easily Convert Decimal Numbers To Their Binary And BCD Formats: Backstory
HERE’S A C/C++ PROGRAM that converts decimal numbers ranging from 0 to 99,999 to binary and binary coded decimal (BCD) formats. Using a simple algorithm in conjunction with pointer arithmetic and bitwise shifting increases the conversion speed without introducing excessive memory overhead and programming complexity. When decimal numbers are within the range of 0 to 9, their binary and BCD representations are identical, requiring only four bits...
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Edmond Vinarub
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